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It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to influence a customer, a supervisor, an employee or a relative the process is the same and there are certain requirements if you want to achieve influential success. But first, why do you want to influence others and are your needs grounded in respect, integrity, compassion and/or noble reasons?

During the centuries there have been many people who either desired to influence others or were successful who did nothing but bring harm, disaster, confusion or downright evil to the world to the people they were trying to influence. I don’t need to give you examples as I am sure a few come to mind easily and quickly so the first issue when it comes to influence is – what are your motives and are they in some way beneficial to others?

What is influence –

Position can influence – parents, politicians, clergy, physicians, teachers and attorneys. But just because you may have a certain role or title isn’t a guarantor of influence. Salespeople can have influence getting someone to purchase their product or service. Evil people can have influence grounded in fear, uncertainty or punishment but this doesn’t mean their influence is used for positive motives. Knowledge can have influence but just because you are the smartest person in the room doesn’t mean you are the wisest.

Influence is the ability to get what you want, persuade others or maintain a position of authority. Professional athletes can have influence on others – children, fans or just folks who have a casual interest in sports but this doesn’t mean getting what they want or persuading others to buy a product that they endorse doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for us.

What we need to achieve positive influence are the right motives, intention and ability to share these with integrity.

Telling your kids, just because you are the parent, that they should do this or that or pursue a certain career isn’t necessarily in their long term best interests.

And finally it is having a passion for what you believe. Right now think of someone you know who has tremendous passion for their mission, belief or purpose in life. Do they have passion? Or are they lukewarm?

Why do we lose it –

There are many reasons why a person can lose influence – all you have to do is look back at politicians who have lost credibility because of stupid choices, actions or decisions. Look at Hollywood stars or athletes who have fallen from grace because of ego or arrogance or just plain stupidity.
In the end most people lose the ability to influence others because they believe that their position, title, role or responsibility is all that is required for them to keep it. I beg to differ.

When I stop trusting you, respecting you or believing you or your motives purposes or goals – you lose the ability to influence me.

Why do we need it –

Anything we get or achieve in life is eventually based on our ability to influence others and I’m not talking here about salespeople, CEO’s or patents or teachers – I’m talking about all of us. Whether it’s being treated by others with respect, not waiting on hold for two hours or disarming a conflict these and every other human behavior sooner or later requires a certain degree of influence.

Wealthy people don’t have any more of it than poor people unless they have this perception that their wealth gives them influence. Mother Teresa was poor. Jesus was homeless. I could give you hundreds of example where wealth had nothing to do with influence.

Smart people don’t have any more influence than people with common sense.

Why do we need influence? Simple – to get what we want whether it’s others behavior or actions or something that adds to our personal worth or value as a human being or the overall benefit of others or mankind.

How do we maintain it –

I have already answered this question but in case you missed it – let me repeat – we maintain influence by; having moral and noble motives, maintaining integrity of our actions and decisions, behaving in a way that increases the trust of others, acting with understanding, compassion and treating others with respect not because of who they are but because of who we are and improving our ability to communicate with clarity, consistency and honesty.

Failure – it’s something that happens to even the best of us. Many of history’s greatest minds have experienced failure at one point in their lives and today’s most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs have racked up numerous fails on their resume. But did it stop them from becoming notable names in history or some of the richest people in the world? No, they learned from their failures and persevered on in their chosen endeavors until they were successful.

They didn’t let fear hold them back, and you shouldn’t either. Fear of failure holds many of us back from doing what we love or dream of doing. But it shouldn’t. Fear of failure translates to a lack of risk-taking and in order to really be successful, some sort of risk is always involved. Without that risk, there is no meaningful success. If you’re ready to conquer your inner fear of failure, here are some ways to help embrace failure and move on from it so that you can be on your path to success:

1. Ask For Help When It’s Needed Most

The thing about failure is that many of us want to fail on our own terms. Asking for help just means that we’re less than competent and we failed to do it on our own, thus we need someone else to come save us. But the thing is, asking for help doesn’t make you look like you’re incompetent, it makes you look human. Everyone needs help and getting help when you fail can help you see your mistakes in a different light so that you can learn from them and correct them. Getting help from others can also transform the way you think about something and can enlighten you to become successful in different ways.

2. Embrace Mistakes To Learn From Them

Since mistakes and failure are a way of life, there’s no better way to move forward from them than learning from them. Don’t just brush them off – really analyze what went wrong and what can be done next time so that the same thing doesn’t happen again at other attempts towards your success. And not be too harsh on yourself once you make them. Step back and find the meaning behind the mistake and you’ll realize that it’s not as bad as you first thought. This will take some practice, but once you change your mentality about failure, you’ll stop being afraid of it.

3. Do What You Fear And Never Stop Pursing Your Goals

Usually, what we want most in life, we’re afraid to go out and do because of that risk of failure. But if you realize that failure is just another part of life and that you won’t know if you’ll be successful or not until you just go for it, you’ll conquer that fear and pursue whatever goal you have in mind. And even if it doesn’t work out the first time, keep pushing towards your goals because if you are determined, failure is nothing but a minor roadblock and you’ll just have to find another way to get to your desired endpoint.